4 Killed in Rain-triggered Landslide Incident in Bangladesh

Dhaka: At least four people including three of the same family were killed after rain-triggered landslides struck their houses in Bangladesh’s southeastern Chattogram city on Sunday.

Jashim Uddin, Fire Service deputy assistant director in Chattogram, 242 km southeast of capital Dhaka, told journalists that among the dead are two women, a man and a child, Xinhua reported.

Three members of a family including two women and a child died after a landslide occurred at a hilly area of Chattogram’s Firoz Shah area after midnight due to incessant rain, he said.

Also in the hilly Panchlaish area of the city, he said, another person was killed due to a landslide. All the deceased trapped under the rubble, he said, had been pulled out after a hectic rescue operation.

In recent years, according to experts, unplanned urbanization, and illegal constructions, mainly in the outskirts, has increased the chances of landslide and other disasters in five districts in Chattogram Hill Tracts.

In May, five persons, including four children, were killed and two others injured in two rain-triggered landslide incidents in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district.

At least 156 people were reportedly killed and hundreds of others injured in the rain-triggered landslides that devastated Chattogram, Rangamati, Bandarban, Cox’s Bazar, Khagrachhari and Moulvibazar districts in Chittagong Hill Tracts in southeastern Bangladesh in June last year.